Tag: peace

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Apologetics of the Christain Faith

Apologetics is defined as, “reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine”. Typically, in the Christian community this is thought of as knowledge or rhetoric used in a debate for Christianity. Books such as, “Evidence that demands a verdict” by Josh McDowell, the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), and grand presentations by Louie Giglio are most prominent.

               I am dubious of the place apologetics takes among Christians. These Apologetics are primarily for the Christians bolstering of their own faith. The evidence for God and ‘proofs’ are not even secondarily for non-Christians – these apologetics may at best be tertiary for the non-Christian.

               Paul says to, “Always be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is in you”. This could easily be applied to fine arguments, but context tells us something very different. The entire book of 1 Peter from which this quote is found, is admonishing the Christians to live peacefully in the circumstance they are in. We alongside them are called to return evil with Good.

               Each person in their position is supposed to respond with quiet kindness. Our example is Christ who suffered because of our own evil and granted us good. It is good for us to suffer for doing good because we are then like Christ. It is from this very peculiar response, kindness in the face of suffering, that we are told to be ready to give an account for the hope that is in us.

               In apologetics, at least old school, they talk of an attention grabber. The attention grabber for us is our behavior – a behavior so peculiar that Peter admonishes us to be ready to give a reason when people ask why we behave like we do. He expected the behavior to raise questions.

               Peter qualifies how we should share the hope once we are asked, “with gentleness and respect”. God oversees drawing his people unto himself. We are not called to raise a ruckus – though I concede that there may be some called to speak loudly as an exception. We are to live, I summarize, kindly first. Fine arguments, dogmatism, bombastic speeches, though God may use them they fail the admonitions of Peter.

               Live kindly and with respect.

The Church and Marraige

On Marriage: To the Church, with Love

It occurred to me recently that I present my blog as a culturally involved blog, and I have not been culturally involved much at all recently. In fact, I haven’t been very involved in anything but work and close relationships. So much so in fact, that it was a few days after the recent supreme court decision to mandate the allowance of a man to be married to a man, and a woman to be married to a woman, before I heard the news. When I found out, my response was, “really? I didn’t know it was being voted on. Oops. Should have kept up on the news more.”

As a devout Christian, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest that our government legalized it. I am not one of those Christians that happily adds a rainbow to his Facebook page to show support. I am not one who calls out that America is going to be under God’s judgement for this. I hold that the Bible says that the act of homosexual intercourse is a sin. However, it is also very clear in Scripture that though we are to uphold God’s truth, we do not condemn those who do not know Christ. They don’t believe in my God, so why should I hold them to His standards?

However, here I speak to the position of the church, not individuals (I believe there are slight nuances in how each should present themselves). I do not believe that the church should ever have spent much time fighting against what the government calls or does not call marriage. Because, Christians, in case you didn’t know, what the government calls or doesn’t call marriage has no effect on what God calls marriage and its place in the church.

It doesn’t change how husbands and wives should love each other or how the church should be taking care of widows and orphans. What the church should be fighting for is simply their right to continue to worship and serve God without hindrance. Pastors should never be required to perform marriage ceremonies for a couple they don’t believe should be married (homosexual or heterosexual), or host the wedding in their building. I believe that a good similar analogy would be that doctors, who take the Hippocratic Oath, should never be forced to practice euthanasia. It would cause them to act in difference to their beliefs and their character as they had made a promise. Do you think that is a good analogy?

Governments will do what they do. Our hope as Christians is that we may worship and serve him freely while showing care for all people, without acting against our conscious, or character of love and mercy as shown to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

(Note, I am not saying that we are close to churches being required to officiate weddings they don’t believe in. There is a lot of fear mongering out there of, “flaming liberals” trying to force churches to officiate homosexual unions. I have never met a homosexual who believes this, and to my knowledge these are the rare extreme, not the norm.

Furthermore, if I worded something poorly in this article that unnecessarily causes offense, please, leave a comment or shoot me a message.)